I’ve got a current TS clearance. The California office of an IT company headquartered in another country may offer me a job. I don’t know if I’ll report directly to or work with US or foreign nationals. will that impact or effect my clearance in any way? What’s the best way to get an official answer in writing? Thanks in advance.

Maybe he means for future use? Your clearance will remain current for 2 years and I don’t think another cleared company/agency would have difficulty in picking up your clearance if it happens in that time period.

Either during reinvestigation or your next clearance application, you would need to disclose foreign contacts, job offers by foreign nationals, and any interests that you hold in foreign companies. None of these should be automatic disqualifiers, but they add a bit more investigation to your file.

Quite a few tech and cleared consultants work in cleared positions for a time, then non cleared non defense contracts , and back as the project dictates. Even for the same employer. Not everyone is in the same secure unchanging GS or DOD job for 30 years.

Will it have an impact? Likely and it depends. It depends on where the company is headquartered. Also, it depends on who adjudicated your clearance and who will be “activating” your clearance. For example, your eligibility was adjudicated by Department of Energy (DOE). You left the position requiring the elgibility then you decided to take a position requiring clearance with Department of Defense (DoD). In that case, DoD might not immediately reciprocate the elgibility that you had with DOE.

In your scenario, I will imagine that you will need to fill out a SF-86C upon returning to a position requiring clearance because the company is headquartered in a foreign country or owned by foreign national(s). This might delay the reciprocate/adjudication process. Really, it depends on the agency.

I think it is much easier to move around when your eligibility is active versus current.

Interestingly . . . You may have already created a reportable event even if you don’t take the job. Do you have a job offer? How did you make contact with the company? What do they do? Is the foreign country a friendly one? Are they primarily interested in you because you have a clearance? Are they affiliated with a foreign power?

The answer is that, yes, if you return to cleared work in the next two years or even later, you’re going to have look at your foreign contacts through this company and you may be looked at very closely.

The California office of an IT company headquartered in another country may offer me a job. I don’t know if I’ll report directly to or work with US or foreign nationals. will that impact or effect my clearance in any way?

Is this office part of the US subsidiary of an overseas company? For example, BAE Systems has its corporate headquarters in the UK but its US subsidiary does a lot of classified work. There’s a company called Radian, based out of Canada, but its US subsidiary also has government contracts.

On the other hand, if this IT company is called “Huawei” then you’re done

The other comments about contacts about foreign nationals are worth noting in either case, particularly if you form relationships outside of work.

Squirrel, don’t know the structure (the company is HQ in a NATO country) and I thought the Same thing. Why is it ok for cleared Americans to work for BRITISH aerospace, aka BAE, headquartered in the foreign land of UK? BAE defense has offices throughout America. Doesn’t BAE in America still ultimately fall under the extended umbrella of British Aerospace in Great Britain UK?

All a foreign firm has to do is open an American subsidiary to not violate clearance rules?

What about possibly foreign owned or staffed IT contractor companies that do business with DOD and cleared jobs? I’ve been contacted by them. The first one who had a foreign name, I told him I didn’t know if it was legal or ok to work for suck a company. The guy got defensive via email and accused me of being racist and wrote how could they have a DOD contract if there was a conflict?!

Second one contacted me recently. According to their GLASSDOOR page they have lots of contract jobs on various US conus bases. What do?

Recruiters are often, very often, foreigners. Particularly in the IT industry. When you get contacted, you may not be contacted by the company directly but by a recruiting company that is looking to provide a set of qualified candidates to the employer.

Foreign owned companies can’t get DOD contracts. Well, they can form independent, U.S. subsidiaries with “fire walls” between the U.S. work and the foreign ownership. But, this is generally only be large businesses.

If you are looking for work, you might need to get a little farther into the process before deciding what is really going on.

So I talked to a clearance specialist lawyer. This is the takeaway. To get a legal advice consultation applying to a certain situation costs over $300 for an hour. I only want 15 minutes but they don’t do that. I was referred to the federal adjudicative guidelines and security executive agent directive 4. You can google it. It’s dense reading like all legal docs.

I recommend everyone on this forum read it.

The problem like all laws and legal docs is the interpretation. I read guideline L - foreign employment- and it’s vague enough to be decided either way.

I asked the lawyer if the adjudication decision is a formula or it’s a gut hunch opinion of the Investigator and adjudicator. Apparently it’s a combo of both plus mitigating factors. The lawyer told me to talk to a company or agency security officer, but I don’t work for the company anymore.